Transferring the domestic cement and solidification-material sales business to Taiheiyo Cement, and studying an end to production (2026)

While a buyer is still there

On profit and loss alone, cement had long since sunk. The reason given in 2022 for not closing it was the internal loop at the Tokuyama works, which turns other products’ waste into raw material — a benefit said to outweigh the losses. The decision to fold it comes from getting ahead of the single point at which that benefit disappears. Once the site is down to one kiln it can no longer perform the waste-processing role, and by then no buyer will be left: the sense of urgency Inoue Tomohiro described puts the presence of a counterparty, not the life of the business, on the time axis.

Even so, this tidying leaves things unresolved. The kilns are to be left retired in place for the time being, concrete plans for conversion are still to come, and the use of the site is undecided. Waste accepted from outside is to be discussed item by item with the companies that generate it, so not every destination has been settled. Against the clarity of the figure — some 2.8 million tonnes of CO2 a year gone — the outline of what remains in the equipment and the region is still faint. What is to be put in place of the second founding business at a lightened Tokuyama works has not, as of this writing, been shown.